Monthly Archives: July 2012

Gene Marks’ trots out the dead corpse of an idea that catering to business customers, with gadgets and corporate services, is the long-term future for tech companies. So he thinks Google will fail because they’re expending too much effort targeting consumers. And while they’re distracted Microsoft will destroy them because the upcoming Surface will be nice for consumers but be a god-send for businesses.

The big problems with this argument are:

An entire movement called “The Consumerization of IT” – the most successful devices right now are those that resonate for consumers firstly, and these people are either bringing their personal gadgets into work or demanding them from their corporate IT staff. This is a widely accepted fact.

Specialized software and services that cater to businesses are no longer essential. Although Google Docs hasn’t given Office any major competition, there are myriad cloud services that sync my documents to my laptop, iPad and phone – all of which work for business or personal stuff. Why would we need a separate “corporate-centric” version of these services?

But the biggest reason this theory is DOA? The prime example of a company that focuses more heavily on the corporate market in the tech product and services space is RIM. It was recently estimated by comScore that The BlackBerry, once an essential tool for “serious” business people, has now slipped below 10% market share. And they repeated this same platitude all of the way to the bottom.

I regularly find a lot of different issues of Fantasy and Science Fiction in bookstores and I’ve always wondered what I might discover if I only had the time and conviction to go through all of them. I came across this issue and purchased it immediately after seeing Gene Wolfe’s name in the contents.

While his story was worth the $4 I paid, there were some bonuses too, listed below. One of the bigger surprises: The film review just happened to cover Night of the Living Dead!

Tarzan of the Grapes by Gene Wolfe: This is an enjoyable, if slight, story; tongue-in-cheek and having a very “meta” concept. This is only the second story I’ve read of Wolfe’s but I am anxiously awaiting the day I make it to the Book of the New Son that sits at the end of my to-read shelf. If these couple of glimpses are any indication, then an Amazon.com reviewer’s comparison of him to J. L. Borges is not inappropriate.

Affair with a Lonesome Monster by Paul Walker:Well-written story about a couple of psychic aliens that wage their final battle in a gay teenager’s mind. The setting and the frankness of the boy’s sexual orientation makes me really curious about how commonplace the topic was in popular culture at that time. Perhaps F&SF was still so marginalized that it was one of the safe places to write about that.

The Week Excuse, by Isaac Asimov:This is a well-reasoned essay on the failures of the Gregorian calendar and how it could be improved. Well it seems well-reasoned, I wasn’t able to follow it completely. It seems comically fitting that the first Asimov I’ve ever read would be this. Foundation is next, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it much more than this dry diatribe.

Variation of a Theme by Curt Siodmak:Well-told short tale of a man trying to get rid of an actual halo that appears around his head. Perfectly paced, most likely due to the fact that Mr. Siodmak was a prolific screenwriter (turns out he penned the script for The Wolf Man with Lon Chaney and the 2010 remake).

Son of the Morning by Phyllis Gotlieb:I had to force myself thru the first half of this one. It got way better after that. Giant, psychic red tigers from outer space prevent a ball of pure energy from instigating a pogrom in a small village’s synagogue. Yes it’s crazy, but you’ve got to love those really absurd concepts. Apparently Ms. Gotlieb was a somewhat popular Canadian scifi author. I probably won’t seek out her other stuff, out but I can see why plenty of other GR users like her.

Like this:

…it’s not a classic but it’s on its way to becoming one, and I want to talk about it here because it received minimal notice (like none) when it first appeared. By now it is a prize example of the film that builds a reputation only by word of mouth, without even the benefit of TV exposure, because it’s too rough to be shown thereon. Readers who live in cities or college towns, or who read the underground press…will know that I’m talking about Night of the Living Dead.

…I attended a midnight showing, the audience of which was primarily hip kids in their 20s come to laugh it up. Instead, I haven’t heard that kind of authentic audience response in the way of screams and gasps since the old days when an audience really did scream and gasp at horror movies.

…it concerns a night when the recently dead are reanimated with a hunger for human flesh.
…

The film combines suspense/terror … with gut, shock horror (extreme graphic cannabilism) more successfully than any other I can think of. Presumably George A. Romero (director/photographer) and John A. Russo (writer) deserve credit for the extraordinary film. I hope they make another.

– Baird Sales movie review in the June 1972 issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction